


One Last Time

by dreamlittleyo



Series: To Say Goodbye [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mating Bond, Sad Ending, everything is pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: In which Hamilton is Washington's mate, but there are no happy endings.





	One Last Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aidennestorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aidennestorm/gifts).



> Prompt: **[Scream](https://dreamlittleyo.dreamwidth.org/103669.html)**

They aren't going to make it.

Sound echoes heavily along the winding corridor, and all Washington can hear is the frantic staccato of booted feet. His own footsteps, Hamilton's, and the dozens more following too close behind. If it weren't for all the twists and corners in this damn complex of tunnels, their pursuers would already have overtaken them.

They round a corner too slowly, and one of the drones gets off a lucky shot, energy beam crackling through the air and catching Alexander in the side. 

Washington feels a sickening slice of pain—not his own—even before he hears Alexander scream. The sound is choked and breathless, and Washington is already reacting. Reaching for his boy without slowing down, dragging Alexander's arm over his shoulders to steady him. He breathes through Hamilton's pain as it refracts through his mind, a prism of borrowed sensation.

He barely has time to react when he rounds another corner and finds an open door directly in front of him. It's the first they've seen in nearly twenty minutes of running, and Washington doesn't hesitate. He darts through, shoving Hamilton against the wall and turning his focus to the panel beside the door.

He thanks every god he knows that this section of the compound still has power. It takes a bare second to close the door—just in time to block an incoming blast as the pursuing security force rounds the corner and catches sight of them. Another handful of seconds and the door is securely locked; and then Washington tears the panel from the wall and yanks loose every piece of wiring he can touch.

It won't buy them long, but it will have to be enough.

"Alexander?" He returns to Hamilton's side and eases him away from the door, helps him to the ground. The pulse of pain in his mind is just as potent as before, and Washington wishes he still carried his standard-issue first aid kit. He doesn't know what the hell those weapons are, but they do a whole lot more damage than a normal firearm.

Alexander's whimper sends a jolt of fear through Washington as he crouches beside his boy. He knows Alexander's pain tolerance—dangerously high—and for him to make a sound like that... Washington knows _damn well_ how much pain he's in, but it's still a sobering proof.

When Alexander's eyes blink open, they're bright and wide. "Sir?" He's clutching his injured side, arms wrapped tightly around himself. His face has gone alarmingly pale. Shock or blood loss, maybe both. Washington is shaking as he tries to pull Hamilton's hands away and get a look at the wound.

Hamilton fights him, but there's a helplessness to it, and Washington knows it's not intentional.

"Let me see, Lieutenant," he says in his sternest command voice. "That's an order."

He wouldn't normally lean on rank when they're alone, but he needs Hamilton to _hear him_ , and he knows no quicker way. He's right. Alexander's expression clears and he stops resisting. Allows Washington to tug his hands away.

Shredded scraps of fabric cling to the wound, bloody and charred. Hamilton hisses as Washington peels the material away and tears more fabric to get a better view.

He immediately wants to unsee what's in front of him. There's too much blood, but there's also scorching and blistering and a sickening glimpse of bone. Worse, the undamaged skin nearby is webbed with poison—it must be poison—oily and dark as it twists along Hamilton's veins. Spreading farther every second.

Washington wishes he could stop Alexander from looking, but of course those wide eyes are staring downward now. Taking in the scope of the damage.

"Oh fuck," Hamilton breathes.

"Keep still," Washington admonishes, though he can't imagine what good it will do. The poison is already circulating. Vanishing out of sight beneath Hamilton's uniform, seeping deeper into his bloodstream.

"Fuck, I can feel it. It _burns_ ," Hamilton hisses, squeezing his eyes shut and moving as though to clutch at his side. Washington intercepts his hands—grabs him by the wrists—but it's more difficult than usual to restrain him. Hamilton is fighting again.

"Alexander, _stop_ ," Washington barks.

His voice must carry enough authority to get through, because Hamilton stills. Opens his eyes. Stares at his captain with a look that's all desperation and hurt.

Washington can't breathe beneath the weight of that look. He can't bear to see Alexander like this.

He can't bear to see his mate in this much pain.

"We don't have much time," Washington says softly. "There has to be a way out of this room."

Already he hears a steady hum of sound that can only be a cutting torch on the other side of the door. Their pursuers—automated sentry drones activated when he and his away team penetrated the abandoned tunnel system—are burning their way through, a millimeter at a time. It will only be a matter of minutes before they've created a hole large enough to step through, and then the room will be full of them. Bipedal, humanoid, but faceless and mindless and bent on destroying the intruders.

Hamilton blinks, stares at him for a long moment, but finally peels his gaze away. Washington knows he needs to let go of his boy. He needs to start looking for an exit. But he's helpless to put any distance at all between them.

"There," Hamilton says suddenly, nodding toward a corner behind Washington. 

When Washington turns, all he sees is a sturdy panel. He looks to Alexander again, confusion writing itself across his face. 

Alexander huffs, exasperated, and grits his teeth to explain. "It's clearly a secondary life support node. There'll be an access port behind it, and a maintenance corridor behind that. It should seal from the other side, buy some extra time."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for," Washington snarls. He reaches for Hamilton, careful of his ruined side.

" _No_ ," Hamilton snaps.

Washington lets go. Stares at him. "What do you mean _no_?"

"Give me your gun."

"What?" Washington's eyes widen and his mouth goes dry. "Why?"

"Because I lost mine when they fucking _shot me_. Give me yours, I can hold them off long enough for you to get away."

Washington's insides go cold, a shockwave of icy denial coursing through him. "I'm not leaving you here. We're getting out. Both of us."

There's alarming gentleness in Hamilton's eyes, and his voice sounds weak, ragged with pain. "I wish that were true. But trust me, we're not."

"Alexander—"

" _You're_ getting out. Give me your fucking gun."

"No," Washington protests, head spinning as his lungs struggle to remember how to breathe. "I can't—"

"You can. You _have to_. Even if I weren't going to slow you down, I'll never make it to the surface."

"Don't talk like that." Washington's voice is choked, his fingers holding onto Hamilton with bruising strength now. It's with belated denial that he realizes the dark webwork of poison has crept up past the collar of Hamilton's uniform, mottling his throat and reaching subtle tendrils along his jaw. A glance lower and he sees the same creeping progress peaking along his wrists and hands.

"This shit is killing me." Alexander is breathing harder now, and there's a rasping tightness to every word, as though his throat is slowly closing off.

"I can't leave you here." Washington's eyes are stinging, and the blurry sheen makes it difficult to see his boy's face.

He expects rage. He expects shouting and wrath and noise.

Instead Alexander goes terrifyingly quiet, locking Washington with a look so fierce he couldn't break away if he tried.

"You promised me," Alexander whispers. "When we did this thing—when we chose each other—you _fucking promised me_. You said if anything ever happened to you, I needed to live. And you promised you would do the same. One of us needs to make it out of here, and it's not gonna be me."

"Please don't make me do this." There's a sob lodged somewhere in Washington's chest. Threatening, choking him, making it impossible to draw a real breath.

"You're my mate." Alexander's voice is stronger now, though it's almost certainly a trick of stubbornness. "I need to know you're safe. Give me the goddamn gun."

Washington knows he's trapped. He made his promises, he doesn't get to rescind them now. Somehow it never occurred to him that _this_ was how things would go. He always assumed he could protect his boy. That if the choice were ever upon them, _Washington_ would be the one to lay down his life and know his mate would live.

He inhales shakily and draws his gun from its holster. He presses it into Alexander's hand despite the wild kick of refusal in his chest.

When Alexander's free hand twists in the front of his uniform and tugs him forward, Washington lets himself fall. Careful not to touch Alexander's ruined side, but helpless as he takes his boy's mouth in a frantic kiss. He barely feels it, desperate as he is to hold on forever. To stay right here and die with his mate. How is he supposed to pick himself up from this floor and _leave_? How is he supposed to live his life knowing he left Alexander here to die?

But how can he break the only promise he ever made his boy?

It's too soon when the kiss ends, when Alexander shoves at his chest and turns his head away. Washington wants to protest. He wants to hold on. He wants to stay.

"You're out of time," Hamilton rasps. " _Go_."

Washington will spend the entire rest of his life wondering where he found the strength to stand. He makes for the panel, finds it opens exactly as Alexander predicted it would. When he glances behind him—one last time—he finds his boy watching him.

He doesn't need to ask what Alexander is thinking—what he's feeling—the echo is right there in his mind. Love and pain and rage and regret.

Washington jerks his gaze away and steps into the service corridor, dragging the panel heavily shut behind him. He leaves bloody handprints behind. Alexander's blood. And for an instant he thinks he's going to be sick.

The wave of nausea passes and he moves along the corridor. Hurrying now. Navigating more by instinct than knowledge, taking whatever turn feels right. Letting his feet carry him to relative safety, knowing that once he's got enough distance he can shift his focus to finding a way out.

He's not sure if the distant sounds he hears are gunfire or just the mechanical systems of this underground complex. He keeps moving.

Certainty comes a moment later, when the sensation of Alexander's mind—his life—twists and shatters and disappears. It hurts. More than anything Washington has ever experienced, it _hurts_ , like having a vital organ torn violently away. His vision blurs, darkens, and he hits his knees, barely managing to clamp a hand over his mouth to cover his own scream of agony.

His stomach heaves and his head spins, and a moment later he's vomiting. Shaking all over as something like shock jerks through him.

 _Alexander_ , his mind shouts, but there's only emptiness where his boy should be.

Worse than emptiness. Shattered pieces, a gaping wound, a raging storm of wrong-wrong- _wrong_.

Somehow, mindless, he finds his feet.

Somehow he reaches the surface.

The rest of his away team has already made it to safety. Washington does not care.

When Burr doses him with a powerful sedative, and sleep begins to drag him under, Washington spares a single hopeless prayer that he will not wake up.


End file.
